


Downtime

by s0ymilk



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Deacon is an Old World nerd, Everyone loves Looney Tunes, Fluff, Gen, Sewing, and is super afraid of commitment, doily-making
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 03:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5482040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s0ymilk/pseuds/s0ymilk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deacon and Nora play a game while trapped in the Red Rocket truck stop.  (F!SS + Deacon)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Downtime

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what the point of this fic was but here you go. 
> 
> At some point I will write proper romance for this pairing.

“One hundred and _fifty_ – no. No, you know what, I don’t believe you. Not about the ice cream and ESPECIALLY not about the robots.”

Nora raises an eyebrow at him. His face remains serious and unsmiling.

“Really? You believed me about the alien mice but you don’t believe that an ice cream shop could be run by robots?"  

Deacon takes a sip of his beer and sets it back down on the floor hard, like he’s making a point. The look he gives her is scathing.

“Not only do you propose that was run entirely by robots, but you also say that the store had a hundred and fifty flavors of ice cream. _A hundred and fifty_.” He holds up one hand. “Everyone knows there are only three flavors of ice cream. One – vanilla” one finger goes up. “Two – chocolate.” The second finger goes up. “Three – chocolate and vanilla together. The end. No more.”

Nora looks at him sitting there, three fingers held up so seriously, and loses it. She’s right in the middle of a sip of her own beer and it spills over the front of her shirt as she laughs. His intense stare doesn’t waiver; in fact, he crosses his arms at her laughter, which just makes her laugh harder.

“Sorry, Deacon,” she says, scrubbing at the front of her shirt, “But that one’s totally true. Me and Nate used to go there on dates all the time.”

Deacon gives her an incredulous look, then dramatically flops back onto his sleeping bag with one hand thrown over his eyes.

“Ugh. That’s three in a row. When did you get so good at this?” he whines. His flailing nearly knocks over his own beer bottle but Nora saves it just in time and hands it back to him.

“Easy there, Grace. You can try again tomorrow.”

They’ve been playing this game for… what, a month now? Any time they’re traveling together, Nora comes up with a story about life before the War, and Deacon has to guess if it’s true or not. She’s guessing that spending all her time with the man of many faces has honed her skill, because nowadays he gets it wrong as often as he gets it right.

They’d tried to play the game with Deacon telling the stories too, but he always insists they’re true so that never got very far.

Right now they’re holed up in the Red Rocket truck stop, just outside of Sanctuary, but the radiation storm is way too heavy to be doing any traveling right now. It’s bad enough that they’re crammed into the tiny back room, which is the only one that can be completely sealed off from the elements. The room is just big enough for both of them to stretch out with their sleeping bags side by side. They hadn’t intended to stay a whole night, but the way it’s going, they might not even be able to leave tomorrow.

“So what now?” Deacon asks, leaning back with his hands behind his head as if he’s perfectly content to stay laying on the floor. “I’m not in the mood to get schooled by your poker face anymore. Should we play a game or something?”

“Yeah, sure. How do you feel about patty cake?” Nora asks drily.

Deacon grins, teeth white in the lanternlight, and holds his hands out to her.

“Let me tell you, I’m the best at patty cake. The baker always bakes fastest for me.” He stops and frowns, then pulls his hands back out of reach. “Yeah, okay, I don’t know why but that sounded really dirty. Maybe skip the patty cake.”

They sit in silence for a minute, a rare occurrence for Deacon, and it’s nice. Nora sips on her beer and Deacon just lets his rest on top of his chest and closes his eyes, maybe listening to the rain patter on the rooftop.  

“Tell me something about you before the war.” He says finally. “Like, no game this time, something true.”

Nora thinks for a moment, wondering what to say. It feels like so long ago. That gleaming, beautiful house in the middle of Sanctuary, the baby crib and its little spinning mobile, Nate’s arm around her on lazy Sunday mornings when they’re just barely contemplating getting out of bed. It’s almost like memories of a different person’s life. She wonders if this is how Nick feels every day, reliving someone else’s happiness.

“I liked to sew.” She says finally. “I was in the middle of making a quilt when…”she stops, unable to finish.

“Uh, I said something true, Ms. Cat Ballou.” Deacon snarks. Nora slaps him on the leg and glares at him, her temporary melancholy forgotten.

“Believe it or not, I used to be very normal. I was a lawyer, but I took a lot of time off when Shaun was born. And yes, _Deacon_ , I liked to sew. I was good at it too.”

His smile fades her fake irritation, as usual. He’s a hard man to be irritated with. She can count on one hand the number of people that don’t like Deacon, and a few of them have changed their minds after enough time in his presence.

“Just kidding. I bet you were. It’s just a weird picture, seeing you covered in blood and taking on deathclaws and all and imagining the same person making doilies.”

She rolls her eyes at that. “I’ve never made a doily in my life. And what about you, huh? What’s your hobby?”

She pokes him in the side with her bare toe and he flinches backwards from the cold skin, nearly crashing into the shelves at the far end of the room.

“Okay, okay, easy on the assault there, I’ll tell you. Have you ever tried water skiing?”

She puts on an unamused face. The amount of time it takes before he cracks is impressive.

With a sigh, Deacon rolls back on to the sleeping back. It must be finally dark enough that he’s having trouble seeing, because he slips his sunglasses off and sets them gently next to his sniper rifle. His John Doe face looks tired and pale in the dim light. The beanie he’d taken to wearing the last few days is askew on his head, leaving one ear exposed.

“I don’t normally have a lot of time for hobbies. Turns out being a spy is a lot of work. But I guess you could say I’m into old-world stuff. You know, like books and tv shows and comics.”

“Is that why you got so excited when you found that Grognak costume and wore it for a week straight? Not that I’m complaining, it was amusing.”

Until he got shot in the shoulder because he wasn’t wearing a shirt and Nora had to watch him almost bleed out in the middle of a firefight. Now the costume is sitting in the bottom drawer of one of the houses in Sanctuary.

“Alright, there are many reasons to be excited about a real-life Grognak costume. One, it was totally my size, and how often does _that_ happen nowadays, it’s basically fate. Two, everyone needs to show off their sexiness sometimes. There is nothing more sexy than Grognak. Three, I was digging the sweater vest outfit before but it’s just too hot for nerd chic right now, you know?”

Nora has long since stopped expecting even a truth as simple as ‘yes, I like Grognak comics so I wanted the costume’ to come out of Deacon’s mouth.

Though the part about the costume being sexy isn’t entirely a lie. Especially when it’s Deacon wearing it.

“Guess I’ll have to introduce you to my secret stash of comic books when we get back to Sanctuary.” Nora drops her voice down to a conspiratorial whisper. “I might even lend you my copy of Looney Tunes.”

_That_ makes Deacon’s eyes widen all right, and Nora doesn’t think she’s ever seen him so excited about anything. The smile that curls onto his face is small, but warm and personal. This is a different smile than the carefree grins she normally sees. It’s nice to see his whole face for once, the way his eyes crinkle a little bit at the edges and the dusting of freckles across his nose. His face was created to be average, forgettable, but it’s not either of those things when he smiles like this.

“Yeah. I’d like that.” He says quietly. “Maybe we -“

He cuts off abruptly before finishing that thought and lets out a less-than-authentic sounding yawn.

“Anyway, good talk. But I think it’s time for some shut-eye.”

Deacon crawls under the flap of his sleeping bag without another word. Nora’s not entirely sure what scared him off the conversation, but she knows she won’t get anything out of him by prying, so all she can do is flip the lantern off and do the same. As she lays there, waiting to drift into sleep, she contemplates what he could have been about to say, but comes to no conclusions.


End file.
